The Blairites Strike Back

The Blairites in Labour have taken advantage of the Brexit vote to attempt to remove Jeremy Corbyn as head of the party:

Jeremy Corbyn will attempt to confront the crisis facing his leadership on Monday morning as he enters emergency talks with the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson, amid a series of further shadow cabinet walkouts and a likely vote of no confidence from his MPs.

The Labour leader, who was left reeling after his decision to sack the shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, was followed by the resignations of 11 senior shadow cabinet members, said he would not “betray the trust” of the people who voted for him by stepping down. He vowed to stand against anyone challenging him for the leadership.

But Corbyn has come under huge pressure from the resignations, which will pitch politicians against Labour party members who elected Corbyn by an overwhelming majority in a battle for the heart of the party.

………
Arguing that his focus was keeping his party together through turbulent times, Watson said: “It’s very clear to me that we are heading for an early general election and the Labour party must be ready to form a government. There’s much work to do.”

Corbyn responded late on Sunday, saying he regretted the resignations but was determined to reshape his shadow cabinet over the next 24 hours. “I was elected by hundreds of thousands of Labour party members and supporters with an overwhelming mandate for a different kind of politics … I am not going to betray the trust of those who voted for me– or the millions of supporters across the country who need Labour to represent them.

“Those who want to change Labour’s leadership will have to stand in a democratic election, in which I will be a candidate,” he added, arguing that the referendum result underlined how shut out of the political system millions felt.

Writing in the Guardian, Len McCluskey, the general secretary of the Unite union, warned MPs tweeting and briefing against their leader that they could face mandatory deselections if they continued with their disloyalty. “Those Labour MPs plunging their party into an unwanted crisis are betraying not only the party itself but also our national interest at one of the most critical moments any of us can recall,” he wrote.

The grassroots movement Momentum also began mobilising to protect Corbyn, with phone banks being set up to contact up to 100,000 supporters ready for another leadership battle. A petition had attracted almost 200,000 signatures to save the leader, and a protest is being planned outside parliament on Monday evening at the same time as the leader will face the vote of no confidence.

They have been waiting since his election to stage this.

I hope that the folks opposing Corbyn lose, and that its aftermath will be the removal of Blairites from senior positions in the party.